J.M.W. Turner: ‘My Business is to Paint What I See’

Art critic Alastair Sooke and Christie’s Harriet Drummond examine other sublime examples from a series made by Turner in Switzerland in the 1840s. More than 150 years after his death, J.M.W. Turner’s reputation stands as Britain’s favourite artist. ‘He shocked his contemporaries with loose brushstrokes and vibrant colours,’ says art critic Alastair Sooke as he walks through galleries at Tate Britain, an institution he describes as ‘the storehouse of Turner’s artistic legacy’. Surveying a group of paintings depicting views of Venice, the critic explains that, ‘Wherever Turner went he was making sketches, and some of them would become the inspiration for later finished paintings.’